20 Worst Best Picture Film Nominees Since 2010
3. Zero Dark Thirty
This factual drama covers some very important recent history - the hunt for Osama Bin Laden - and that's probably the main reason it was nominated. After all, if you look at it through the parameters with which we generally judge film quality, than Zero Dark Thirty is simply not a good movie.
OK, maybe that's a bit unfair. Put it this way: if you want a faithful, strongly acted, well-edited and technically well-constructed recreation of the historical events, then Zero Dark Thirty has you covered.
But... if you're looking for something that isn't bloated as hell, that isn't completely soulless and hollow, that isn't gratuitously violent, that isn't filmed with the panache of a TV movie (as in, back when that was still an insult) and doesn't have one of the worst screenplays ever nominated for an Oscar, then Zero will leave you thoroughly pissed off.
The film starts out with an unnecessarily overlong torture scene and basically goes downhill from there. In the worst possible way, Zero is like a filmed Wikipedia article. It recounts these incredibly impactful events without the slightest bit of emotion, character development or pathos, and the final product is as robotic as one of Michael Bay's Transformers.
Furthermore, even though Kathryn Bigelow is a very talented visual stylist her direction here is weirdly underwhelming and she just shoots the whole thing with generic handheld cinematography any director could've done.
Still, at least it didn't win.